Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Paint-Scraping over Stencils


This technique is a "wet" version of the crayon-rubbing technique that's been around forever.  The old-style technique calls for dry crayon or other soft media such as pastels or charcoal; but what's used here is acrylic paint.  I've found that heavy-body acrylic paints work better for this application than the liquid versions.
For this technique I always choose stencils with large openings, rather than stencils with intricate, fine details.  

Below are the six 6"X6" StencilGirl stencils that I've used today:
Top row, L to R -- Trivet B (my stencil), Mimosa (my stencil), and Curvie Lattice (by Mary Beth Shaw)
Bottom row, L to R -- two copies of Kaleid (my stencil) and Intersections (by Wendy Aikin) 



Below:  One sheet of Lineco tissue has been secured over the stencils with masking tape.   




Below:  Wet acrylic paint (blue, taupe and orange) sits atop each column of stencils, ready to be scraped downward over the paper.  You can click on this photo to enlarge it and better see detail.




Above:  I've spread the tools I typically use for scraping.  The shower-wall-cleaning "squeegie" did a better job than the Princeton Wedge (altho the Wedge is great for other projects.)  The paint-covered credit card and the white rigid-plastic wedge (from a home supply store) both work well, too.




Above:  Paint has been scraped down across the stencils; then more paint was added and scraped down in the same way, using slight pressure as the scraping tool was pulled downward.

Important tip:  If using Lineco tissue paper, remove the paper from the stencils as soon as you have finished the paint-scraping.  If the paint is allowed to dry first, the paper will stick to the stencils and will be more difficult to remove. 


I used both Lineco tissue and dry-wax deli paper for this project and found that the Lineco tissue will expand and form wrinkles as it is being scraped by the paint-loaded tool.  This does not happen with the deli paper.  However, deli paper is more resistant to the paint; prints on it may not show up as well.
After these first scraped paints had dried, I turned the tissue over and repeated the same technique on the other side.  I used different colors of paint on the second side so that, when finished, the paper would be printed on both sides, with non-matching prints.
After the paint had dried on the second side, the tissue paper was ready to be cut for use in collages, greeting card covers, scrapbooking, art journaling, etc.
Important note:  Doing both sides of the tissue makes the finished product stronger.  When cutting up the finished paper, make sure to check both sides before making the final cuts.  Sometimes you will like the "top" side of one section and the "bottom" side of another section of the printed paper.

Below is a greeting card collaged with a variety of tissues that have been paint-scraped to pick up the designs of stencils under the tissue.  The most prominent piece (background yellow) was made with my Kaleid 6" x 6" stencil. 



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